


Be Gay, Do Crimes, Turn in Your Homework

by xiaq



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Gets Therapy, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs Therapy, College, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Only One Bed, Roommates, also playing fast and loose with my knowledge of history, because we're going to have some Joe/Nicky flashbacks, except not really an alternate universe, for Nile but also for fun, idiots to lovers, it's not actually unrequited love they're just idiots, oh my god they were roommates, playing fast and loose with my knowledge of other languages, post Merrick the old guard goes to college, quynh is a mortal graduate student, which is the only non-canon-compliant aspect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:20:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29046780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiaq/pseuds/xiaq
Summary: Post-Merrick, The Old Guard goes to college, is domestic, deals with some loose ends, and everyone gets a happy ending.“I know you’re all as old as dirt, but I’m only 25,” Nile says. “I want to go out.”“Pardon,” Joe says. “Andy is the only one who is as old as dirt.”“Thank you, Joe,” Andy says.“I, on the other hand,” Joe continues, “am as old as… a Bristlecone Pine. Or perhaps a well-preserved and striking Obelisk from the Axum empire, stolen by Mussolini's fascist soldiers in the 1930s, and finally repatriated to Ethiopia in 2002.”“That’s weirdly specific,” Nile says.“You should major in archeology this time, my love,” Nicky says.“Mm.” Joe presses an absent kiss to Nicky’s temple. “There’s a thought. And I’m sure you aren’t suggesting it just because you want me to dress like that Indiana Jones.”“Of course not. Though I would not object,” Nicky says serenely.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 153
Kudos: 522





	1. SUMMER BREAK: Cefalù, Italy

Nile’s sword arcs out of her hand and onto the ground several feet away for the third time in as many minutes. She leans over to brace her hands on her knees, breathing hard.

“How are you so good at this?” she asks.

It’s a mostly hypothetical question. Hundreds of years of practice ought to make someone frustratingly adept at swordplay.

“Ah,” Joe says, grinning, “while you were busy being heterosexual, I studied the blade.”

It takes Nile a second.

“Ok, wow. Shut up. You’re not allowed to quote memes at me, old man."

“She is also not heterosexual, my love,” Nicky says from where he’s sitting in the shade with a book. His tone is lightly chastising. “You should not assume.”

“Oh.” Joe looks genuinely surprised. “I apologize. Are you not?”

“No? I’m bi.”

Joe considers this for a moment. “Bisexual?”

“Yeah.”

“I see. Booker is as well. Though it took him a few decades to realize.”

“It took him a few decades to _admit,_ ” Nicky argues. “I think he realized rather quickly, sharing such close quarters with us.”

“Oh my god,” Nile says, straightening. “Were you two responsible for Booker’s queer awakening?”

Joe spreads his arms as if to prove his innocence—though “innocent” is difficult to pull off when one hand has a sword in it.

“Nicolò is very pretty and makes equally pretty sounds given appropriate … stimulation. I was not responsible.”

“You were responsible for the sounds.” Nicky says dryly. “And I recall several years in Malta when you had a predilection for nudity and Booker had a predilection for getting drunk and commenting on the unfairness of your ass. I do not think that was jealousy, only, my love.”

“I do not recall this,” Joe says. 

“I do,” Andy mutters.

She’s sitting on the opposite side of their little courtyard cleaning a rifle.

Nile hadn’t understood, at first, why the group was so adamant about renting a home with a private, stone-walled garden. After sparring with them for a few weeks every morning, healing countless wounds, some that may be fatal for a mortal, she gets it now. And that’s aside from Andy’s fondness for dismantling and reassembling weapons while sunbathing. Privacy is important.

“Regardless,” Nicky says, “are we using queer, now, as a term? Is that no longer derogatory, Nile?”

“Mm,” Nile says. “I mean. It’s still derogatory when some people use it but it’s also been pretty widely reclaimed. There’s a whole like, genre of scholarship called queer theory, now. You can get a degree in it.”

“Interesting,” Nicky says, tapping his book against one thigh. “We should go to college again. We haven’t done that in a while.”

Nile looks back and forth between them. “You’ve gone to college? Of course you have. Better question. How many degrees do you all have?”

“Andy has nearly a dozen. Mostly sciences, right boss?” Joe says.

“Two in biology,” Andy says, not looking up as she scrubs the bore of her 338 Lapua. “One each in microbiology, chemistry, cognitive science, astronomy and astrophysics. One in ecology. And one in music.”

“Music?” Nile repeats.

“Not just music,” Joe objects. “A degree from Julliard. Have her play the piano for you some time. Or the violin.”

Nile feels a headache coming on. “And you two?”

“Joe has a bachelor’s degree in studio art,” Nicky says, “a PhD in art history, a masters in art conservation, and a law degree. I have a bachelor’s in English, a PhD in religion, a doctorate in medicine, and a masters in medical ethics.”

“And Nico went to Culinary school twice,” Joe says proudly.

Nicky sighs. “Three times.”

“Ah, my heart. I apologize. Nico attended culinary school _three_ times. But he only graduated twice.”

“What happened the third time?” Nile asks.

“We do not speak of it,” Nicky says.

“We could,” Joe suggests.

“Yusuf,” Nicky says.

Joe laughs. “Perhaps later. Again, Nile.”

Nile groans and retrieves her sword.

“Keep your elbow up this time,” Andy says, still not looking away from her gun.

Niles groans louder.

***

“Nile,” Joe says when they’re between bouts of sparring a few days later, “we’d like to discuss something with you.”

“Well,” Nile answers, sprawled in the center of the courtyard waiting for her spleen—is it her spleen? Nicky would be able to tell her—to knit back together again. “I’m all ears.”

“You never went to college, yes?”

“Not really. I did community college for a year. I always planned to go back later with the—” she winces as something muscular slots back into place “—GI bill and all that.”

“We were thinking,” Joe says, “that perhaps we should settle somewhere for a few years and you could do college now and only take occasional missions on weekends and holidays. We can ease you into the lifestyle and give ourselves a break at the same time. We all enjoy academia. It would be nice to attend classes again, as a group.”

Nile sits up on her elbows, carefully not looking at her stomach.

“Are you for real?”

“Yes,” Nicky says, picking up the thread. “You need training, but you should also have experiences like this while you are still young and have things in common with your peers. At least the first time.”

Nile thinks about all the degrees between them and realizes that collecting multiple degrees of her own is likely an eventuality. 

“I mean. That would be great. Can we? Do we have the money and the, uh—we’d need fake IDs and paperwork and stuff, right? And like. A place to live. Where would we go?”

“Andy’s making a list of places she deems acceptable. We’ll contact Booker for the aliases and Copley will see we’re admitted. We just wanted to make sure it was something you were interested in first.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, of course. Wait—is Booker coming too?”

Nile hasn’t been able to get his face out of her head. His eyes. The expression of devastation; something worse than devastation, maybe, when they left him. 

They talk about Booker often, like it’s a habit. But Nile finds she can’t be as cavalier as the others when his name comes up in conversation.

“No,” Nicky says. “He’s our forger, though. He will make the documents.”

Nile rolls up into a proper sit. “So you’re going to ask him to make us a bunch of fake documents so we can all go to university together and bond and shit while he’s alone?”

“It’s only a hundred years,” Joe says. 

“There’s nothing only about the punishment you gave him.”

“You’re young,” Joe says, “you don’t understand.”

“No,” Nile says, pushing herself to her feet. “I don’t understand. Because you looked at a man—an alcoholic who was so lonely and desperate and in so much pain, that he went searching for a way to end his life. You looked at that man and decided that the best cure for his desperation was even worse isolation. Either you’re being intentionally cruel or you’re not nearly as smart as your multiple degrees would suggest. Maybe you should be a psych major this time.”

“Nile,” Joe says. “Come now.”

She slams the door when she enters the kitchen, then immediately turns to press her ear against it.

“She has a point,” Nicky murmurs. “A very good point.”

“Nico,” Joe murmurs. 

“I’m not excusing his actions,” Nicky says. “But if I did not have you—if I’d lost you. I cannot say I would not have done the same. He did not mean to hurt us. He only meant to hurt himself. And now we have hurt him even more.”

“But he _did_ hurt us,” Joe says. “Accident or not he was responsible for the things they did to you. The things I had to _watch_ them do to you when I could do nothing to stop them.”

“Tell me,” Nicky says, “tell me you are certain you would not have taken similar measures if I died and left you alone. Tell me honestly, habibi, and I will never bring up my opposition again.”

Several seconds of silence follow.

“You want me to speak to Andy,” Joe says. He sounds tired.

“I want _us_ to speak to Andy,” Nicky answers. “I think she will agree this was not the right course of action, now that we have some distance. Now that we are not so angry.”

“Fine,” Joe says. He slips into Italian and Nile, feeling somewhat proud, heads to her room to shower. Her shirt, like many before it, goes straight into the trash can.

***

Nicky can’t sleep that night.

Joe is tucked behind him as usual and the room is dark and quiet and nothing is amiss.

Except that the cadence of Joe’s breathing is off.

His hand, wrapped like a proprietary habit around Nicky’s wrist, has yet to go sleep-slack.

“You are still awake,” he murmurs.

“As are you,” Joe aptly points out.

Nicky turns in Joe’s arms, slotting their legs together, lifting his fingers to the slightly-too-sharp cut of Joe’s cheekbone.

They both still wear subtle signs of their ordeal, immortal as they are.

“My love,” Nicky says, “I can tell you are troubled.”

He says it in Arabic, so Joe knows he’s serious.

“I don’t think I can forgive him,” Joe admits.

Nicky isn’t surprised.

He pets Joe’s cheek for several seconds, then traces the shadow from the window that halves his face with moonlight.

He lets his thumb linger on Joe’s bottom lip.

“Do you remember,” Nicky murmurs, “After Jerusalem. Even after I defected. After I fought against my own countrymen. I gave you a thousand apologies and they meant nothing in the wake of the destruction I had facilitated. Do you remember how angry you were then?”

“Of course,” Joe says.

“It was justified, your anger. It was justified then and it is justified now and if you had never forgiven me I would have understood.”

Nicky pauses, pressing a dry kiss to Joe’s mouth purely because the relief is still so raw, even after all these years, that Joe could love him despite his failings.

“I was angry with myself,” he continues. “The guilt I felt—I knew it did not compare to your pain, which, perhaps, made it even worse, but I did not think I could ever repent enough. I did not think I could ever redeem myself for things I did. Or the things I allowed with my inaction.I was certain that I could never earn forgiveness. That I could never deserve you.”

“Nicolò.”

“And I think…perhaps Booker feels the same, right now. And I know that one should not be alone with those kinds of feelings.”

Joe says nothing.

“I had you,” Nicky whispers, “when I struggled all those years. Before you forgave me, you were still _there_. You did not abandon me, despite your anger, and I am so glad for it. I am so grateful for that kindness. I don’t know what would have happened had I been alone. What I would have become.”

Joe tightens his grip on Nicky and presses his lips, not really a kiss, just an affirmation, to his forehead.

“You do not need to forgive him,” Nicky says, “but show him the same kindness you showed me, please.”

Joe nods and then places a proper kiss to each of Nicky’s eyelids. To his cheeks. To his mouth.

“That I can do,” Joe says.

“I know,” Nicky says. 

One of Joe’s hands creeps up beneath Nicky’s shirt. He presses his thumb to the trench between his third and fourth ribs: the intercostal space where Joe’s saber had found Nicky’s heart exactly thirteen times before they’d finally laid aside their weapons.

“I’m sorry it took so long to forgive you, justified as my anger might have been.”

“That you forgave me at all is a blessing.”

“Still.”

Joe switches to English: “Tell me every terrible thing you ever did,” he quotes, “and let me love you anyway.”

“Sade Zabala,” Nicky agrees. “She has a new book out, did you know? I will get it for you.”

“And I will read it to you.”

Nicky kisses him because he doesn’t know what else to do and because he can and because he wants to.

“I love you,” he says, because it’s true and because he never tires of saying it.

“As I love you,” Joe answers.

They shift back into their normal positions and Nicky finds, with relief, that Joe’s breath eases quickly into a familiar pattern. Nicky drifts to the slow cadence of Joe’s chest, rising and falling and rising again—a comforting metronome that he knows better than his own heartbeat. 

He sleeps.

***

Andy picks Booker up from the airport a week later.

Nile had volunteered, but Andy wanted—

It’s her responsibility. _He_ is her responsibility. 

She’s still so angry with him, but she also still loves him. He is––was––the closest thing she had to a best friend. And she’s more than a little afraid she’ll be picking up a shell of a man.

Except when Booker comes out of the arrivals doors, with a leather bag over his shoulder and a rolling suitcase in the other hand, he looks good. Shockingly good. The bags under his eyes are gone and the pinched lines around his mouth have vanished. He looks young—perhaps younger by a decade, even, which shouldn’t be possible. He probably looks the best she’s ever seen him.

“Sebastian,” she says.

“Andromache.”

She hadn’t been planning to hug him, but she finds herself doing it anyway.

He’s warm and solid and _Booker_ and something hollow and bereft in her chest—she really hadn’t thought she’d ever see him again—eases when his hand closes around the back of her neck and clings.

She missed him.

The hug lasts long enough that they both look a little awkward about it when they finally step away from each other.

“You look good,” she says.

“I’m, uh. Four months sober.” 

And that is even more shocking than his appearance. She can’t remember a time that he didn’t have a flask in his jacket.

She looks at him again and suddenly the changes make sense. 

“That’s…good?”

“I think so,” he says.

She opens the trunk and he swings his bags into it.

“So,” she says, once they’re in the cab and merging with the rest of the traffic exiting the airport. “Anything I need to know? Anything we need to do? I can get rid of the alcohol in the house.”

“No. It’s fine. Or it should be fine, I think.” He tucks his hands into the pockets of his coat, avoiding her eyes. “You should probably know, though. The kid has been sending me messages. Through Copley at first and then email.”

“Nile?” Andy asks.

Andy had no idea that Nile had been in communication with Copley, much less Booker. She’s grudgingly impressed.

“Nile,” Booker agrees. “Yes.”

Andy doesn’t particularly like the way Nile’s name fits, familiar and fond, in Booker’s mouth.

She loves Booker, but he would need a whole hell of a lot of therapy before Andy would trust him and his trauma alone in a room with Nile. 

“And,” Book says, low and halting, like he’s expecting judgement. “I’ve been seeing a therapist. I…edit. The things I tell her. Obviously. But it’s been good, I think. We meet once a week on the computer. She’s been helping me stay sober.”

Huh.

“You’re seeing a _psychologist_?” Andy repeats. Just to be sure.

Booker laughs like he can’t quite believe it himself.

“For nearly six months, now. Don’t worry, she just thinks I’m a former soldier who’s experienced an undue amount of tragedy in his short life.”

“No, that’s not—I trust you.”

She shouldn’t, after everything. But she does.

“I’m proud of you, Book.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“Why now?” she has to ask.

Booker rubs the back of his neck. 

He shrugs.

“Nile asked me to.”

Andy has no idea how to respond to that.

“She told me to try therapy for a month and if it didn’t help she’d stop bothering me about it. So I went. I didn’t think it would change anything, but.”

“It helped?”

“It helped.”

“Hell,” Andy says. “Maybe _I_ should try therapy.”

“Probably.”

She punches his shoulder gently. “I’ll consider it.”

She studies his profile as he studies the passing scenery; the relaxed slope to his shoulders; the way his hands sit, without fidgeting, on his thighs.

“So,” Andy says, because it’s still not making sense. “You started all this—completely changed your life—because Nile asked you to.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “And no, I don’t understand why either.”

Andy leans her head back and exhales in a whistle.

Well. At least they’re on the same page.


	2. FRESHMAN YEAR:  Austin, Texas

They move into their new house, three blocks from UT campus, a week before the semester starts. 

It’s an old victorian, but recently updated, with four bedrooms, wood floors, and big windows. Most importantly, the property has a backyard with an eight foot fence and an impressive number of trees that blocks nearly every sightline. Andy noted this before they even toured the place. Nicky had nodded approvingly at the kitchen, Joe exclaimed over the claw-footed tub in the master bathroom, and Nile was overwhelmed by the very concept that a house like this—a gigantic, beautiful, house like this, in a city like Austin, was something they could just _buy._

“Good investment,” Andy had said, “we can do some updates over the next few years and sell it again for a profit when we leave.”

Booker didn’t say much of anything except to ask the realtor a few questions about the age of the roof and the oak tree in the yard that leaned over the front porch. He’d spent the first month in Italy almost completely silent unless directly asked a question. The second month he’d slowly started joining in on the gentle ribbing during Nile’s language lessons.

His behavior hadn’t changed by the time they arrived at the Austin Airbnb. But when they close on the house and select their bedrooms (the master for Nicky and Joe, the two upstairs bedrooms for Andy and Nile, the attic bedroom for Booker) he seems to lose a bit of his uncertainty with them.

He expresses opinions about furniture when they go shopping later that day at Ikea—Nile insists on Ikea because if they aren’t going to keep the furniture for more than a few years there’s no sense in spending obscene amounts of money on the handmade boutique furniture downtown.

None of the Guard have ever been to Ikea before and by the time they’ve outfitted the various rooms in the house, they’ve all laughed more than Nile can remember. _Booker_ laughs, even. And argues with Andy over curtains. And gets into a very brief, but very serious, pillow fight with Nicky in the home furnishing department.

Later, Nile walks through the house and grins at the couch and recliner and rug, the blacks and grays of Andy’s room and the vibrant colors of Joe and Nicky’s. Her own room is mostly a study in white, full of different textures from the knobby throw pillows to the crinkly duvet and plush rug. 

Booker’s room is a surprise. Green and white linens and rustic brown furniture suits the A-frame shape of the room. He has a desk by the window with a line of books on it already.

He doesn’t say anything when she ducks her head in and nods approvingly, but he looks happy, maybe.

Nile takes a tour of campus the Friday before classes begin and returns just as Nicky is finishing making lunch. She hooks one of the bar stools with a heel and spreads out the pamphlets she’s collected on the counter.

“So,” she says, considering. “Should we do the Greek Life thing?”

“Sure,” Booker says.

“Fuck no,” Andy says

“It might be fun,” Joe says.

“It might not,” Andy argues.

“Perhaps we should vote,” Nicky interrupts diplomatically.

“Perhaps we should start a new trend on campus,” Andy says, absently spinning a knife over her knuckles. “We can call it ‘Roman life.’”

“The hell would Roman life be?” Booker asks.

She grins. “When we conquer the Greeks and take all their shit.”

“I feel that might be frowned upon,” Nicky says.

“I feel that a large percentage of students on campus would absolutely support such a venture,” Joe objects.

“I take it these fraternities are not well-liked?” Nicky asks.

“I’m given to understand that those who are not actively part of fraternities and sororities often would enjoy partaking in pillaging those who are,” Booker says.

“Always been a fan of pillaging,” Joe says cheerfully. “Provided the pillage-ees deserve it. Can we ascertain that they do?”

Nile tosses the sorority pamphlets into the trash can. 

“Never mind,” she says. 

It’s fine, she wasn’t stoked on sororities anyway.

“How do we feel about rec sports, then?” she asks. “I think if we get one more person we’ll have enough for a dodgeball team.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Andy says.

“Mère de Dieu,” Booker says.

“What is, uh, ‘dodge ball’?” Nicky asks.

“Oh, you’d like it,” Joe says. “Two teams throw rubber balls at each other until one team has been defeated. To tag someone ‘out’ you must hit them with the ball.” 

Joe holds out his hands in a rough approximation of size, and then throws his invisible ball at Andy. She dodges.

“Ah,” Nicky says. “Yes, I will be good at that.”

“I know, my heart,” Joe says. “Nicky’s accuracy is very good, in all things,” he tells Nile. “No adversary will triumph over us with Nicky on our team.”

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Nile says.

“I think I know who our sixth person can be,” Andy says.

Everyone goes silent.

Nicky turns off the stove.

“What?” Booker says.

Andy pockets the knife, heaving herself off the couch so she can join them in the kitchen. “She’s a graduate student. I met her at the library yesterday.”

“You made a _friend_?!” Joe asks. “Boss. Tell us about her.”

“I just did. She’s a graduate student. I met her at the library yesterday.”

“Okay but what’s her field?” Nile asks.

“History. We argued about the Revolutionary War. It was nice.”

“Mère de Dieu,” Booker says again.

“I can’t wait to meet her,” Joe says.

The following evening finds Nicky and Joe cuddled on the couch, Andy in the recliner, and Nile trying, without success, to get them to experience some night life in the new city they’re calling home.

“I know you’re all as old as dirt, but I’m only 25,” Nile says. “I want to go _out_.”

“Pardon,” Joe says. “Andy is the only one who is as old as dirt.”

“Thank you, Joe,” Andy says.

“I, on the other hand,” Joe continues, “am as old as… a Bristlecone Pine. Or perhaps a well-preserved and striking Obelisk from the Axum empire, stolen by Mussolini's fascist soldiers in the 1930s, and finally repatriated to Ethiopia in 2002.”

“That’s weirdly specific,” Nile says.

“You should major in archeology this time, my love,” Nicky says.

“Mm.” Joe presses an absent kiss to Nicky’s temple. “There’s a thought. And I’m sure you aren’t suggesting it just because you want me to dress like that Indiana Jones.”

“Of course not. Though I would not object,” Nicky says serenely.

Nile sighs. “Please, you guys? It’s no fun to go alone. Come on.” She shoves her way between Nicky and Joe on the couch, slinging an arm around each of their shoulders. “Wouldn’t it be fun to get out and let loose a little? To _dance_?”

“The kind of dancing we do is not fit for public viewership,” Joe says. “And Nicolò is uncomfortable with the noise and lights at clubs. I would not subject him to it and I would not go without him. I will have none but his hands on my body.”

“Ugh.” She slides desolately from the couch onto the floor. She can’t argue with that kind of love. “Andy?”

Andy raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Fine,” Nile says. “I’ll just watch something on Netflix.”

She glances up as Booker comes down the stairs, his Kindle in one hand and a mug in the other.

He takes in the scene before him with a slight frown.

“Nile?” he says, stepping up to the kitchen island. “Is there a reason you’re on the floor?”

“I think she is attempting to evoke pity,” Joe says.

“It isn’t working,” Andy says.

“Pity?” Booker repeats.

“I was trying to convince them to go dancing with me,” Nile sighs, using the coffee table to pull herself upright. “But they’re all old as dirt and allergic to fun.”

“Obelisk,” Joe reminds her, pointing to himself.

“Bristlecone Pine,” Nicky agrees, tapping his own chest.

“Ah, hold on,” Joe says. “I’m a Bristlecone Pine as well then.”

“What?” Booker says.

“If you’re a tree, I’m a tree,” Joe says.

Nicky leans up to kiss him before Joe can lean down.

Nile never should have introduced them to _The Notebook_.

She stands, shaking her head at Booker. “Don’t worry about it. Tl;dr they’re ancient and boring. I’m assuming you’re not interested in going out either?”

Booker glances down at the mug in his hands, looking a little lost. “I was just…going to get more tea.”

“Alright, well. I’m off to bed then.”

“I could—” 

Nile stops with her foot on the first step of the staircase.

Booker is holding his Kindle against his chest like it’s a form of protection.

“If you need someone to go with you,” he starts again, “I could go.”

The entire living room is silent.

“Really?” Nile asks.

“ _Really_?” Andy says.

Booker sets his mug on the counter with a sense of finality.

“She’s young,” he says, attention on Andy. “She should be out having fun on the weekends like other young people. So. Yes.” He nods to Nile and he only looks a little bit like he’s agreed to walk the plank. “Let’s go.”

Nile considers Booker’s corduroy pants and soft but rather shapeless knit sweater.

“You’ll need to change.”

Booker grimaces. “Into what?”

It’s a good question.

She considers.

“Go put on the grey jeans with the—” she makes her fingers into an X shape “—cool stitching on the pockets. Your ass looks great in those. And if you don’t have a tight black shirt, maybe borrow one of Joe’s? And don’t put any gel in your hair.” She nods decisively, “Ok, let me get ready. Meet you back here in fifteen?”

She bounces up the stairs and Booker doesn’t move for several seconds.

“Did she say—”

“That your ass looks good in the grey jeans?” Joe finishes for him. “Yes. And she’s right.”

“It is true,” Nicky agrees.

“Let me get you a shirt,” Joe says. “I expect it to be washed before you return it to me.”

Andy doesn’t say anything, but one of her eyebrows is still very, very, high.

“What?” Booker says, setting his Kindle next to his mug so he can cross his arms.

“You’re going _clubbing_ ,” she says. It’s not a question but it also is.

“She wouldn’t have gone alone.”

“Uh huh.”

“She’s young,” he says again, because it feels like the most urgent thing to emphasize. “And she’s been working hard. And she’s given up so much. She’s—she should be out there in the world remembering why life is worth living whenever she has the chance and the inclination. She shouldn’t be stuck here every night with…us.”

Andy doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t think we are so bad,” Nicky says.

“Do you even know how to dance?” Andy asks.

“Of course,” Booker lies. 

Joe returns and tosses him a scrap of fabric that is surely too small.

“I’m going to change,” he says with as much dignity as he can muster.

“Be careful,” Andy says.

He meets her eyes for several long seconds.

“Of course,” he says again.

They take a taxi downtown and Nile sits in the middle seat, pressed against Booker’s side, scrolling through club options on her phone as if he has any frame of reference to give advice.

She appears to realize this after a few minutes.

“Ok, real talk,” Nile says. “Have you ever actually gone dancing before?”

“The last time I danced was in a Jazz club in New Orleans in 1907.”

Nile blinks at him. Several times.

“Well. I guess that’s a start. At least you had good taste. Do you know how signals work?”

“Signals,” Booker repeats.

“So you know when to come save me if I need it.”

“Save you?” he repeats, much more sharply.

“Yeah like if some guy is being too pushy. I could punch him in the face, but it’s easier if another dude intercedes, you know?”

“This happens often to women? Often enough that you need a signal to—” he shakes his head. “Of course it does. I apologize.”

“ _You_ don’t have anything to apologize for.”

That is decidedly untrue.

“What is your signal,” Booker says. It comes out perhaps a bit more urgently than he intended.

“This.” Nile fiddles with her earring, tugs at her earlobe, and then meets his eyes.

“Okay,” he agrees. “As for the dancing—I will do my best.”

“That’s ok, old man. I can teach you. Or you can just hang out at the bar and—oh shit. Is the alcohol going to be a problem? We don’t have to go, Book. Seriously. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that until now. I’m so sorr—”

“Nile,” he interrupts. “Hey. It’s fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll have a ginger ale and watch out for you and maybe you can teach me some … moves. It will be fine.”

“You’ll let me know if it’s not though, right? You promise?”

“I promise.”

She holds out her pinky and he stares down at it, flummoxed.

“What is this?”

“It’s—oh. I guess you wouldn’t—it’s a pinky-promise. Look.” She shapes his hand in a similar way and hooks their two smallest fingers together. “There.”

“And this is binding?” he asks.

“A solemn oath,” she agrees.

Booker thinks she’s probably messing with him, but he commits himself nonetheless.

“Okay,” she says as the car pulls to a stop. “I think I’ve found a place. It’s just a block away. You ready?”

He is not.

“Sure,” he says.

They get into the club easily enough. Of course they do. Nile is beautiful in a top that is more skin than fabric and painted-on jeans and he knows he is not entirely unfortunate-looking dressed as he is. The IDs easily pass muster because he is, after all, a master of his craft.

The lights and the sounds are overwhelming. He can see why Nicky would refuse to come to such a place.

And the dancing is—

Booker has seen many things. He has _done_ many things. He is not a prude by any means. But the dancing is more sex than dancing and Nile’s bare back is open to the hands of strangers in a way that makes something fierce and protective claw it’s way up from his chest and into his throat.

He watches for the signal but she seems to be enjoying herself.

She dances first with a girl who has a shaved head and a tattoo creeping up her neck from the ripped shirt she’s wearing; then a boy with dreadlocks that have little gold hoops attached to them that flash in the light as they move together; then another boy, lean and grinning widely, as he should, at the honor of dancing with her.

She’s an excellent dancer—natural and confident— and watching her delight is its own sort of joy. Booker can’t remember the last time he enjoyed something the way she seems to be enjoying herself tonight. She dances with another girl, this one with long hair tipped in pink, and then a lanky man cuts in during a song that Booker can only describe as obscene. Nile takes the man’s sudden intercession in stride for a moment but then one of the man’s hands slides down to cup the inside of Nile’s thigh and she twists out of his arms, moving instead into a group of girls who part seamlessly to admit her. But the man follows, reaching out to tug on one of her braids and ducking to put his mouth against her neck and Booker is already moving before he sees her hand go up to her earring.

He has the kid scruffed a moment later, pulling him away from her with ease.

“Mon trésor,” he says, thumb pressed hard into the soft flesh of the kid’s neck. He has to shout so Nile can hear him, “Is this boy bothering you?”

“He was,” she says, “but I’m sure he’s already reconsidering his life choices. Right?”

The kid tries to shove at Booker.

It’s not effective.

Booker shakes him a little, just because, and then lets him go. He quickly disappears into the crowd.

Nile is grinning up at him, sweat at her hairline, face glowing under the multicolored strobing lights.

“You ready for your dance lesson, old man?” Nile asks.

He is not.

“Sure,” he says.

***

Nile falls asleep on him on the ride home.

It’s intimate in a way that dancing had not been, though the dancing had certainly been intimate in a way that—

Well.

Perhaps he is just old-fashioned.

He puts an arm around Nile to keep her steady should they encounter any potholes and lets his cheek rest against the top of her head.

She’s a good kid. Young and vital and happy and _young_.

And he—

He is none of those things.

He is a relic.

But for a few brief moments, when he was laughing with her on the dance floor, hands on hips and shoulders and the sweat-slick dip of her spine, he had forgotten exactly how old he was.

Perhaps the exuberance of youth is catching.

Or perhaps there is just something about _her_.

He doesn’t follow that train of thought.

“Nile,” he murmurs as the car slows to idle at the curb. “We’re back.”

Her response is a soft noise that makes his chest ache for no reason.

“Come, mon trésor, we are home.”

She wrinkles her nose and lets him usher her out of the car, one arm still around her waist, and he’s debating how he’s going to open the door with only one hand and the keys in the pocket Nile is leaned against, when the door is opened for him.

Andy.

Of course.

He gets Nile to the couch, then brings her a glass of water while Andy watches.

“Is she drunk?” Andy asks.

“I don’t think so,” Booker murmurs, “she only had two shots. She fell asleep in the car, though.”

“I’m just getting old,” Nile groans, pressing the cool condensation from the glass against her neck. “I could have gone until sunrise a few years ago but here it is 2am and I’m exhausted. And my feet hurt. Shouldn’t our healing factor help me out with this?”

“You also did several hours of training today,” Booker points out.

Andy turns her attention to him. “Did you drink?” she asks bluntly.

“No.”

“Did you dance?”

“Yes.”

“Did you…” She clears her throat. “Did you have a nice time?”

Booker glances at Nile, finishing her water, and tucks his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“I did.”

Andy purses her lips. “Good. Get some rest.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Book,” Nile says. She’s listing to one side.

“Yes?”

“How would you feel about carrying me upstairs?”

He manages not to laugh at her.

“I can do that.”

There are worse things than having Nile draped, warm and content, over his back.

“Did you have fun?” he asks.

“So much,” she agrees. “Did _you_ have fun?”

“Surprisingly, yes.”

“Would you want to go again sometime?” she asks into his neck as they reach the landing.

He takes a moment to answer.

“I think so. Perhaps not next weekend—”

“Yeah, no. I was thinking more like. Once a month?”

“Sure,” he says. 

He deposits her on the bed in her room and wonders at the propriety of helping her take off her shoes.

“Do you want more water?” he asks instead.

“I’m fine.”

“Ok, well,” he rubs his hands on his thighs. “Goodnight, then.”

She yawns, nodding, and reaches to unlace her shoes.

He slips into the hall.

“Hey Book?”

He pauses, hand on the door frame.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

He can’t help but think he should be thanking her.

“Of course. Goodnight, Nile.”

It takes him a while to fall asleep but for once it is not torturous, being left alone in the dark with his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Captains Log:
> 
> The semester is going well. My comics course, especially, is a delight (or I suppose my students are a delight). Deacon has yet to get tired of all the snow, though it's certainly losing its novelty for me. I've been informed that electric socks are a thing, which will perhaps improve my general mood about snow (and cold, wet boots post-hike!) in the future.
> 
> I woke up this morning with potential Covid symptoms, which means classes online for the week and getting tested this afternoon (not super excited about either of those things). I'm hoping it's a latent vaccine reaction since I got the first round of Pfizer on Thursday, but we shall see.
> 
> It'll take 3 days to get my test results back and I'm quarantined until then which won't be all that different from my typical plans except I won't be hiking or attending mentor/club meetings. I'll use my quarantine time to write, though, so, silver lining?
> 
> Anyway, see you next week provided the plague does not strike me down before then.


	3. FRESHMAN YEAR: Austin, Texas

Joe doesn’t know who killed him the first time he died.

It was June 1098. Antioch.

He was lost in a surge of bodies—a writhing mass of invaders and his brothers and noise and blood. He knew they were losing; that with the betrayal of a postern gate guard, the walls were breached and the city would be lost. He knew he would die and he did.

There was nothing poetic about it. Nothing valiant.He was fighting and then he was dying and then he was dead.

And then he wasn’t.

It wasn’t Nicolo that killed him, that first time. Nicolo hadn’t even joined the fighting yet, and he wouldn’t for several more months—not until Jerusalem. His engagement would be short-lived when he did, when he realized exactly how unholy his promised holy war was. 

Yusuf thought, for months after their first meeting, before he had the sense to ask, that Nicolo had been at Antioch. That he had, with the other Franks, massacred Christian and Muslim civilians alike: women and children and elderly. That, like his countrymen, he had reveled in the destruction, perhaps had even been responsible for dragging Yusuf’s body outside the walls and leaving it with the others to burn. It was, perhaps, a fair initial assumption. Joe didn’t know better, then. How could he have known that Nicky was not the sort of man who would keep an oath that necessitated needless cruelty? 

Joe wishes he knew who killed him the first time. Even all these years later, he is petty enough to feel pleasure at the knowledge that, whoever the man was, he is now dead.

And Joe is not.

He doesn’t often think about the beginning of things; they are not particularly happy memories. But his conversation with Nicky a few days before—about forgiveness and anger—has him reflecting on the past.

“What are you thinking about, my love,” Nicky murmurs, dropping onto the bed beside him.

It’s mid-afternoon and Joe had been considering a nap before memories distracted his attention. He has one final class at four pm and he isn’t particularly excited about it but he also doesn’t want to set a bad example for Nile, skipping so early in the semester.

“Yusuf,” Nicky says.

“Hm?”

“What are you thinking about? You’re frowning.”

He presses a gentle finger to the space between Joe’s eyebrows.

“Antioch,” Joe says. “And what came after.”

“Ah,” Nicky exhales and it manages to convey a continent of hurt. Of regret.

Nicky likes to think about the beginning even less than Joe does.

He blinks away the past and focuses instead on the blue, blue, blue of Nicky’s eyes.

He touches the mole on Nicky’s jaw with one finger, more poke than caress.

“Do you remember what I said to you, when we first started talking after Jerusalem. When we realized we both spoke Greek?”

“You said your immortality was a gift, but mine was a curse. That I was so ugly the devil did not want my company.”

“I’m surprised you remember so clearly.”

“The most beautiful man I had ever seen—a man who I had watched rise from the dead on multiple occasions—took the first opportunity of shared language to insult me. Of course I remember.”

Joe grins.

“You know, it could not have been farther from the truth. I was furious at myself for finding you so compelling.” He brings both hands to Nicky’s face: thumbs pressed to the swell of his cheekbones. “I’d never seen eyes like yours. They haunted me.”

Nicky blinks.

“You’ve not told me this before.”

“I try not to think about those days if I can help it. But in retrospect my furious certainty that you were a devil sent to test my faith is…rather amusing.”

“You thought me a devil?” Nicky manages, disbelieving. “ _Me_?”

His disbelief is warranted. Nicky was not a warrior, when they first met. He was a fumbling priest wielding a sword with only a modicum of experience. He was also unwashed, too thin, and having a crisis of faith. The combination wouldn’t look good on anyone. 

And yet.

“I’d been warned about the beauty of vice,” Joe says wisely. “After all, temptation is predicated on the idea that the enemy is alluring, is it not?”

“Indeed,” Nicky agrees. “Though I cannot imagine I held much allure, then.”

Nicky is probably also thinking about his initial hygienic practices.

Joe is glad they moved past that early in their relationship once he introduced Nicky to bathhouses. 

“Part of my fury was that I _felt_ attraction to such a bumbling, unwashed, heathen,” Joe allows.

“Bumbling?” Nicky splutters, but he’s smiling. “ _Heathen_?”

“I notice you don’t dispute the ‘unwashed.’”

Nicky rolls his eyes. “You were equally squalid when we met, if you remember.”

“Not by choice!” Joe argues.

“Speaking of,” Nicky says, “I was about to take a shower. I had come in to see if you wanted to join me, but I think I will now revoke that invitation.”

“Probably for the best,” Joe sighs. “I have class in an hour.”

Nicky purses his lips at Joe’s expression. He tries to recall Joe’s schedule, printed out and stuck to the refrigerator downstairs. 

“Pottery?” he asks.

“Yes, but the clay is all _wrong_ now, Nicky,” Joe despairs. “The texture is just—” he shapes his hands and clenches his fingers and gives up finding the appropriate descriptor, “—wrong!”

“Would it help if I accompanied you?” Nicky asks, “I made scones this morning. We can use them to bribe your instructor and then I can do my best to distract you from your…clay related woes.”

“Is it bring-your-husband to school day already?” Joe says hopefully, “So early in the semester?”

Nicky ducks to kiss him and retreats to the hall.

“Apparently. I’ll go box the scones.”

“I loved him against reason,” Joe shouts after Nicky, “against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”

“I already said I would come,” Nicky shouts back, “You don’t need to woo me with Dickens.”

“I must always woo you,” Joe argues, “With Dickens or otherwise.”

“Can you do your wooing a little more quietly?” Andy yells from the living room. “I’m trying to do my homework.”

“Experience says ‘no.’” Booker murmurs, also from the living room.

“I’m going to the library,” Andy says.

Joe stretches and goes to find some pants.

***

Nicky is checking the spice rack later that evening when Nile pushes through the front door, toeing off her shoes.

“How was class?” he calls.

“Good,” she answers, tossing her keys into the waiting bowl and making a beeline for the kitchen.

“I,” she says significantly, dropping her backpack onto the floor next to the barstool she claims, “have News.”

“That sounds like a capitalized ‘News,’” Joe says.

“It _is_.”

Nicky pulls his head out of the cabinet and Booker, sitting on the sofa, closes his laptop.

“I met Quynh. Andy’s Quynh. Or at least I’m assuming she’s the same one. How many history PhD students named Quynh can there be in one university? Anyway, she’s one of the TAs for my Multicultural Middle Ages class. She’s interesting.”

“Interesting,” Joe repeats. “Could you, perhaps, elaborate?”

Nile rolls her eyes, but considers. “You know how some people look like cute little cinnamon rolls but in reality they’d probably kill someone for a corn chip?”

“I…suppose?”

“That’s her. I thought she was cute from a distance and then after one lecture it was like. Cute? Not so much. Pretty, yeah. But in the same way that those deadly acidic lakes that are full of sulfur and methane are pretty. She’s a look-but-don’t-touch sort of person, you know?”

“Ah,” Joe says knowing. “That makes sense, then.”

“What makes sense?”

“Andy’s interest in touching.”

Nile opens her mouth and then closes it again.

“Guess I can’t argue with that. Should someone remind her that she’s not immortal anymore?”

“I think the danger may be part of the appeal,” Booker murmurs.

“Fair.”

“Where _is_ Andy?” Nile asks, moving to open the refrigerator.

“Library,” Booker says.

“Don’t ruin your dinner,” Nicky says absently as Nile emerges with a cheese stick. “I’m making Fattoush.”

“Can we make it now?” she asks. “I’m starving.”

“Hi starving,” Joe says, “I’m Joe.”

“No,” Nile says. “We talked about the dad jokes.”

“I was just about to start,” Nicky says, ignoring them both. “Joe, if you wanted to run, you should go now.”

“Oh,” Nile says. “Let me change and I’ll go with you.”

“I thought you wanted to help,” Nicky says. “Or was the ‘we’ merely for show?”

“ _I’ll_ help,” Booker says, which gets some raised eyebrows. Everyone in the room knows that Booker hates cooking. “You should run,” he continues. “If you want.”

Joe narrows his eyes but shrugs. “Five minutes?” he asks Nile, and five minutes later, Nicky and Booker are alone in the kitchen as the shadows start to lengthen.

Nicky assigns the chopping of vegetables to Booker and waits.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

“I’ve been wanting to apologize,” Booker says.

“I have been wanting you to apologize as well,” Nicky says.

Booker huffs out a laugh but his posture goes a bit less rigid.

“I never meant for any of you to be involved. It was only supposed to be me. And I know that’s not an excuse. I should have known better than to think you wouldn’t be impacted. But I’m so—” he swallows. “I never would have imagined you would suffer because of my decisions.I don’t know how to express how sorry I am.”

“I have some idea,” Nicky allows. “I have experience with penance, after all. And you certainly seem to have had a—what does Nile call it? A _Jesus_ moment?”

“Come to Jesus,” Booker provides. “A ‘come to Jesus’ moment.’”

“Yes. Such a funny phrase.”

He squints around the kitchen, trying to locate the leftover pita from dinner the night before.

“I accept your apology. And I am pleased you seem to be...healthier, now. Though, I won’t lie, I am more than a little jealous that you quit drinking for Nile when I have been telling you for decades that it is a terrible, destructive habit.”

“I didn’t do it for her,” Booker argues, frowning at the tomato he’s attempting to slice.

Nicky raises an eyebrow.

“I mean. I did go to therapy the first time for her. To get her off my back about it. But I kept going because it was…good. Well. Not good. Helpful, I suppose. She never asked me to stop drinking, though.”

“Why did you stop, then?”

“There’s a term my therapist used—rock bottom. It’s when you can’t go any lower. You have nothing left to lose because you have already lost everything that holds meaning to you.”

“Ah. You were there?”

“I was.”

“You’re not, any longer?”

“I’m not.”

They are silent for several seconds, knives on cutting boards and eyes on their hands.

Nicky turns on the sink to rinse some lettuce. “And how is therapy?”

“Therapy is…”

Booker considers.

“You know in Inferno—when Dante gets his first real look at hell and he is terrified and asks Virgil how they can escape, and Virgil says, ‘the only way out is through,’?”

“Yes,” Nicky says.

“It’s—therapy is like that. There’s no going back. You must confront the terrors in front of you, and then leave them behind. Or get stuck, I suppose. But the whole goal is to press onward.”

“That sounds difficult,” he says eventually.

Booker laughs. “It is.”

“It will likely be worth the struggle, in the end.”

“So says the Catholic.”

Nicky grins at him.

The Fattoush is a hit, which is unsurprising considering it’s something of a staple in their rotating dinner menu. They’re nearly finished eating before Andy finally arrives back at the house, though, shedding her satchel and smiling, just slightly, as she adds her own keys to the bowl.

“How’s Quynh?” Nicky asks.

“You get a date yet, boss?” Joe adds.

“She’s fine,” Andy says. “And no, not yet. This one will be a long game.”

Joe whistles lowly. “Long game. When was the last time you put in the effort for a long game? Billy Holiday?”

“No,” Nicky argues. “It was that french girl. The nude model in that art class we all took together in the 70’s. You remember?”

“I do,” Booker sighs. “It was an entire semester of sexual tension.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Nile says. “Who was the _shortest_ game?”

“Byron,” Nicky and Joe say simultaneously.

Booker sighs again.

Andy grins.

“Also out of curiosity,” Nile says, “How many _historical figures_ have you slept with?”

“Too many,” Booker says.

“Would have been more,” Joe says, “except she stopped going after as many celebrities once photography became more popular. Too risky.”

“A necessary sacrifice,” Nicky says solemnly, raising his glass.

Andy accepts his toast with a nod.

“Can we expect you to continue your forays to the library in the afternoons, then?” Joe asks.

“Long game,” Andy agrees. “And the library is…not bad.”

“A ringing endorsement,” Joe agrees.

***

Andy has been in many, many libraries over the course of her life.

Her favorites are nearly all lost to time, but she finds the Austin Public Library acceptable. It’s a modern building that despite its clean lines and utilitarian sensibilities still manages to maintain a cozy sort of appeal with large windows and plenty of comfortable seating areas tucked around the rows and rows of books. It also has a plant-filled atrium on the roof, and she finds herself visiting it nearly every day after classes the first week of term.

The libraries on campus are nice enough, but they’re also full of undergrads, and despite being one herself (again), she doesn’t particularly want to be surrounded by them.The libraries on campus also don’t have a veritable greenhouse in which she can complete her homework.

Additionally, the libraries on campus don’t have Quynh.Quynh is…interesting.

She’s a history PhD student who has questionable opinions about marxism, but excellent taste in studying locations: Exhibit A: the plant-filled roof of the library. She’s beautiful in a fierce sort of way and she talks about everything from Sappho to the civil rights movement with a passion that Andy finds both refreshing and slightly exhausting. She also has messaged Andy.

Their conversation earlier that day had been brief yet expansive.

It started with Andy commenting on the accuracy of the _War and Peace_ translation Quynh was reading for one of her seminar classes and ended with an argument—discussion? they were more or less in agreement, after all—about the plight of homosexual American servicemembers in WW2.

Quynh only had an hour at the library before she had to meet another graduate student for a revising session, but she’d asked for Andy’s cell number before she left.

Andy gave her the new number she’d only just activated the day before.

And now, there was a message from Quynh on her phone.

_Here’s the book I mentioned_

There is a hyperlink attached that takes Andy to the private press’ website for _Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II_

A few seconds later there’s a second message:

_Don’t fucking buy it on Amazon_

Andy can’t entirely suppress a smile at that.

Joe, carrying his plate to the kitchen, whistles.

“Who could possibly be responsible for that expression?” he asks.

Nicky accepts the plate from Joe and adds it to the sink of soapy water.

“I have a guess,” he says. “I also have an unrelated question. Why is it that I usually end up cooking _and_ cleaning up after dinner? Does courtesy not dictate that the chef does not partake in the cleaning-up process?”

“Little spoons shouldn’t ask big questions,” Joe says, patting Nicky’s ass in a conciliatory manner. 

“Little spoon is currently holding a knife.”

“Very sexy,” Joe says, smacking a kiss to Nicky’s cheek. “But not an acceptable counter-argument.”

Nicky hooks one elbow with an easy familiarity around Joe’s neck, and within less than a second Joe is in a headlock, Nicky’s hips flush against Joe’s ass, Joe’s hips pressed hard against the butcher block, and the knife, barely pressed at all, just beneath his jaw.

“How’s this for a counter-argument, my love?” Nicky whispers.

“Mmm.” Joe says, grinning. “Compelling.”

“Really?” Nile says. “Right in front of my salad?”

“Fattoush is not a _salad_ ,” Nicky says, scandalized. 

“I feel like that’s a reference I’m not getting,” Joe says. “Is it a Tiktok thing?”

“It’s a porn thing,” Booker says.

“It’s a _what_?” Joe says. “How do I not know about this?”

“If you’ll quit with the foreplay, I’ll show you,” Nile says, holding up her phone.

“Sorry, my heart,” Joe says, twisting expertly out of Nicky’s hold. “Hold that thought.”

Nicky rolls his eyes.

Booker stands with his own plate. “I’ll help you with the dishes, Nicky.”

“While I appreciate it,” Nicky sighs, “I feel we’ve still yet to internalize the concept of _those who cook do not clean_.”

“I only have so much time left,” Andy says. 

“And you must spend that time texting Quynh?” Nicky asks innocently.

“I must,” Andy agrees.

“A valiant cause,” Nicky allows. “You are excused from dish duty.”

She salutes him.

“Oh,” Joe says, looking over Nile’s shoulder. “Oh, yes. That _is_ funny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Captain's Log:
> 
> So are y'all super excited about the fact that we officially have a second Old Guard movie in the works? (I definitely am). 
> 
> It's been snowing here for the last week, which means we have escalated from snow plows to actual gigantic heavy-duty earth-movers making piles of snow nearly as tall as buildings to try and keep roads and sidewalks somewhat maneuverable. I have yet to wipe out but have watched many others making inelegant descents to the icy pavement while walking to and from class. Deacon is peeved he can't leap around in the snowbanks anymore since they're taller than him. Alas. 
> 
> Shout out to anyone in Texas dealing with the dumpster fire that is ERCOT right now. You have my condolences. And also my support if you plan to overthrow the government (for my full rant on ERCOT and the situation in Texas, feel free to hit up Tumblr).
> 
> Anyway. Stay safe and warm everyone! Thanks for all the comments!


	4. FRESHMAN YEAR:  Austin, Texas

They first dream about the rat two weeks before fall break.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Andy says.

It’s 2 am and they’re congregated around the kitchen island waiting for the electric kettle to boil.

“A rat,” Andy says for the fifth or sixth time in as many minutes. “A fucking _rat_.”

“Yes,” Joe says, “you would think a cat would be more apt. Nine lives and all that.”

“Hush,” Nicky says, “Andy is having a crisis.”

“Did it look like it was in a lab to you?” Nile asks. “Because I didn’t get much aside from pain and fear but it looked like—“

“Yes,” Booker says, moving to stand beside her. “I think it was in a lab.”

Apparently no one had wanted to say it, but they were all thinking it.

Now, the mood turns immediately sombre.

Nile leans into Booker because he’s there and he’s warm and the idea of someone out there experimenting, and experimenting _successfully_ , leaves her feeling chilled.

Booker leans back.

“Fuck,” Andy says, also for the fifth or sixth time.

“It has to be Kozak,” Joe says.

“Yeah, probably,” Booker agrees. “She was never officially reported dead. Experience says that means she got away.”

“And who knows what she was able to bring with her,” Joe says, rubbing a palm into one eye. “She took so many _samples,_ ” he says the word like a curse, “if she was even able to get half of them out—”

“Shh,” Nicky says, catching the back of his neck. He pulls their foreheads together. “It’s in the past. And we’ll deal with this now, this last piece, and then it will be over.”

“How _do_ we deal with it?” Nile asks.

The kettle clicks and Booker, after a short, pained glance at Joe, moves away to pour mugs of tea.

“I’ll call Copley,” Andy says, accepting the first mug from Booker. “Though I’m not sure how much he can do if all we have to go on is ‘newly immortal rat in a lab probably run by Kozak.’”

“It’s a start,” Nicky says.

Andy sighs and heads back up the stairs, and they can hear “a fucking _rat,_ ” as she disappears around the landing.

“What are we going to do with a rat?” Nicky muses. “We’ve never had a pet before. Unless you count the occasional stray.”

“We’re going to go get it?” Nile says. “We’re going to _keep_ it?”

“What else would we do with it?” Booker asks. “It has to be kept secret, just like the rest of us. We can’t exactly drop it off at a pet store. Sell it on Craigslist.”

“Nobody uses Craigslist anymore,” Nile murmurs. “So. We’re going to have Copley find out where Kozak is. And then we’re going to…what? Stage a rescue? Of a _rat_?”

Nicky pushes a mug of tea into her hands. “Ideally, yes. A good first mission for you, actually. Lower stakes when the victim needing extraction is pocket-sized and cannot die.”

_Sure, a good first mission. Unless they capture some of us again_ , Nile thinks.She doesn’t say it, though, because Joe already looks…not good.

“Perhaps we should do some research on the care and keeping of rats,” Nicky says, “We will need an enclosure of some sort. Food. I’m not sure what else they require for mental stimulation. If they need companionship, that might be difficult.”

“A rat,” Joe sighs. “It couldn’t have been a dog? I _like_ dogs.”

“Be glad it wasn’t a mouse,” Nicky says. “Easy to misplace. Easy to step on.”

`“Might have preferred a mouse,” Joe murmurs, grinning.

Nicky rolls his eyes and kisses him.

***

It’s been a long time since Booker has subscribed to any kind of religion. But sometimes, when he can’t sleep, he’ll pick a god and pray. This night certainly calls for it.

_Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum._

He’s worked his way through _Oratio Dominica_ and is halfway through _Salve Regina_ when the stairs creak. He is both surprised and not surprised to find Nile in his doorway.He sits up straight in his desk chair, feeling oddly as if he needs to do something with his hands.

“Were you _praying_?” she asks.

Her disbelief is warranted.

“Maybe,” he says.

“You’re not sure?”

“Not certain if it counts, is all.”

Nile nods like she understands. Perhaps she does.

“Was that Latin?”

“Yes. I’ve heard Nicky go through his prayers often enough it feels wrong to do it in English.”

“Huh.”

“Would you—”he realizes he has no seating to offer except the bed. And while he knows that’s hardly an inappropriate offering considering the circumstances, it still feels terribly impolite.

Nile takes his aborted gesture as an invitation anyway and flops, belly first, across the bottom of his rumpled duvet.

The visual is jarring: Nile in her pajamas, stretched across his mussed bedding, the room lit only by the small lamp on his desk.

The quiet feels weighty, as does her attention.

“I don’t—“ Booker starts. “I uh, I don’t believe in god, or gods, I don’t think. Any of them.”

“Okay.”

“I just didn’t want you to misunderstand.”

She smiles like he’s being sweet. Or endearing. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I won’t start asking you to go to church with me.”

He would, if she did. He elects not to tell her this.

“So why the praying then?” she says.

“I thought it couldn’t hurt. Considering.”

“Fair.”

He means to leave it, but finds himself adding, “It makes me feel better, sometimes. To pray. I usually default to Catholicism or Islam because they’re the most familiar. I think my Arabic is better than my Latin, actually.”

“Sometimes I think that’s half the point of prayer,” Nile says quietly.

“Hm?”

“To make the person praying feel better. I dunno. Maybe that’s a little blasphemous.”

“Well, religion has historically been used, for better or for worse, as a way of controlling populations. Humans like to feel connected to something larger and more powerful than themselves. I can tell you from experience that even atheists will turn to prayer under…certain conditions.”

Nile doesn’t say anything, but she’s watching him, expectant, and so he keeps going.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard some bastardized version of 1 Corinthians 10:13 from someone terrified or dying or both. They whisper that God will not burden them with more than they can bear. But that’s not the verse at all, it’s—”

“That you won’t be tempted,” Nile supplies. “That you won’t be _tempted_ beyond what you can bear.”

He has to look away from her because the conversation is suddenly laughably apt.

“Yes. Exactly. And perhaps that, at least, is true. But if there is a god, I have certainly seen him burden many people with more than they can bear.”

He exhales, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and hazards a glance at her.

“I’m sorry. This is far too morbid.”

“No, it’s interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk this much. I like it.”

Ironically, he finds he has no response to that.

She smiles softly at him and he manages to clear his throat, blinking away from her again.

“Did you need something?” He asks, and then hastily amends, “Not that you need to…need something. To come to me.”

She props one elbow on the mattress, then lets her cheek rest in her palm.

“Oh, not really. Just looking for company. Andy is on the phone with Copley, and Nicky and Joe are…”

“Being Nicky and Joe?”

“I was going to say ‘canoodling.’”

“Good word.”

“Thank you.”

The silence settles, comfortable, around them, and Nile kicks her feet back and forth a few times before meeting his eyes.

“Are you scared?” she asks.

It’s quiet and earnest and nearly heartbreaking.

“Of course.”

“Okay,” she exhales.

He stands because she looks as if she is in need of comfort and obviously he should provide it, except she is also lounging on his bed and in order to give comfort he would have to join her.

“Do you mind if I—?” he gestures to the space next to her.

She frowns up at him. “What? Yeah, sure. It’s _your_ bed, Book.”

That it is. Except usually it does not have Nile on it which means he is no longer entitled to it without her permission.

“There is a quote,” he says, sitting gingerly beside her, “by Eleanor Roosevelt that I think you might like. She said ‘You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, _I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along_.’”

He reaches out one hand and lets it rest, carefully, slowly, on her shoulder.

“I’ve looked fear in the face so many times now that he is familiar, and I have grown accustomed to comparing one terrible tragedy to another and knowing I have the strength to press on because I have experienced worse. Perhaps I’ve become jaded with the process, but I’ve never stopped being afraid. There’s no shame in fear. Especially not for someone as young as you.”

“I‘m not _that_ young,” she says. “I was a soldier. But that’s—that makes sense. And it makes me feel a little better.” She rocks to the side, pushing into his hand. “Thank you.”

She rolls and his fingers slide from the cotton of her shirt to the bare skin of her arm and he snatches his hand away and does _not_ press his thumb to his fingertips to somehow capture the sensation.

“Where’d you get that quote?” she asks.

“You don’t think I selected it myself?”

Nile lifts an eyebrow. “I’ve seen the books you read.”

He _had_ selected it himself, is the thing. He’s read every word Eleanor Roosevelt ever wrote. He knows that Nile is unfamiliar with his background; he knows that his own reticence is responsible for that. But the assumption still stings.

He sighs. 

“Joe,” he says, because he knows it will make her laugh, and it does.

He wants to tell her that he has multiple degrees in literature. In English, French, German, and Russian. He wants to tell her that he spent his childhood with books as companions and that before he was pressed into military service, he was a scholar. That he read to his children before bed every night. That he has published fiction under pseudonyms and writes poetry when he can’t sleep and that if he is not as effusive as Joe, if he does not flaunt his knowledge so openly, it does not mean he has fewer words or feels any less.

He wants to tell her that the books he reads now—science fiction and fantasy and trashy pulp novels with little substance—that he reads them for escapism. For company and comfort. 

He wants to tell her that if he picked up Kafka today he might start crying and never stop but that doesn’t mean he has forgotten _Das Urteil_ or _In der Strafkolonie_.

He doesn’t say any of this, though.

“Is there something I can do to help you feel less afraid?” he asks instead.

She kicks her feet a few more times and he tries not to let his attention linger too long on the muscle in her calves or the somehow illicit slope of her ankles. Her toenails are painted with something that sparkles and he tries to focus on that instead. That, at least, is excusable.

“Could you teach me the Lord’s Prayer in Latin?” Nile asks, “ I know it starts with _Pater noster_ but that’s all I’ve got.”

“Of course,” Booker says.

And he does.

***

Andy hangs up the phone and only barely resists throwing it across the room. It’s not Copley’s fault that they have so little to go on, but it’s still infuriating. She sits on the bed and stares at the black sky out the window for several seconds and then shoves herself to her feet. She kneels and slides the electric keyboard out from under the bed. She plugs in her headphones. She sets her fingers to the keys. 

She’d purchased the keyboard and the collapsable stand online and Joe, the only person who was at the house when they arrived the week before, hadn’t said anything as she carried the boxes upstairs.

She starts with Debussy then moves to Chopin because _Nocturne op.9 No.2_ is distressingly fitting for her early-morning mood. She plays a bit of Tchaikovsky to loosen up her hands properly and then returns to Debussy, because _Clair de Lune_ will always be her favorite composition to play at night. 

And then she plays her own work. Old work. It’s been recorded under other names, of course, but it’s hers, and it always will be.

Eventually her hands start to tire, something she never used to worry about but probably should now, and she fiddles around with a new piece she’s been working on but hasn’t been able to finish. She plays it through once, still incomplete. It’s not as bad as it was, and it’s improved enough that she should probably stop there. She doesn’t. She isn’t sure what possesses her to do it, but she closes the door to her room, unplugs the headphones, and plays it a second time while making an audio recording on her phone. And then, before she can talk herself out of it, she sends the recording to Quynh.

It’s nearly 4am. Andy isn’t expecting a response. But within a minute, Andy’s phone lights up with a text.

_What song is this?_

_It doesn’t have a name yet._ Andy answers.

_You wrote it?_

_I did._

Andy folds up the stand and stows it and the keyboard under the bed.

She turns off the lamp and climbs back into bed.

Her phone stays dark for several minutes and she finds herself staring at it on the pillow beside her.

Finally, the screen brightens.`

_I’m impressed._

Coming from Quynh, it’s a significant compliment.

_Did you know I play the cello?_ Quynh says.

Andy did not. She can picture it, though, and it makes something in her chest go tight with anticipation.

_Are you any good?_ She asks.

_I’m second chair in the orchestra here, so I’d say so._

_I’d like to play with you some time._

She doesn’t actually intend the double-entendre but by the time the words compute, she’s already sent the text.

_I think I’d like that, too._ Quynh answers.

And then she sends a winking emoji.

Andy nearly drops her phone.

That’s flirting, right? Andy doesn’t know much about emojis or chat speak or whatever the hell texting language is called but a wink is a largely universal symbol, regardless of medium, isn’t it?

She pauses before replying because she has no idea what the future looks like for her or the rest of the people in the quiet house who share her secrets. They may have to leave soon. They may stay for several years. They may need to stage a rescue for a goddamn _rat_ and Andy may be injured in the process because she can _be_ injured now. She is suddenly paralyzed with uncertainty. And then she isn’t. She only has a few decades left, now. So many of the reasons she’s always had for never forming attachments with other people no longer exist. And maybe they will need to leave and maybe she will end up dead sooner rather than later, but, for now, she will enjoy the happiness she can find.

_This weekend?_ She asks.

_This weekend_ , Quynh agrees.

***

Nicky can’t sleep.

He leaves Joe dozing in bed and checks Andy’s room first. She appears to be composing—a rare enough event that he does not want to interrupt.

Nile is not in her room which isn’t entirely surprising.

He quietly, very quietly, slips up to the attic next, prepared to turn around quickly if needed, but Booker and Nile are not engaged in any risqué behavior. They are stretched out on Booker’s bed, bellies down, propped up on elbows, shoulders touching.

Booker’s laptop is open in front of them and, inexplicably, they appear to be listening to a recitation of Surah Ta Ha on Youtube. Booker is murmuring a quiet, running translation for Nile as the video plays.

He will not disturb them either.

He descends the stairs and finds himself thinking about the first time Joe had sung the same words to him, back when Joe was Yusuf and Nicky was Nicolo and they were just beginning to _see_ each other, not as enemies but as humans, for the first time.

So long ago, now. And yet the words remain the same. There is a certain comfort in that.

Nicky makes himself another mug of tea and spends some time online looking up information about rats, hoping sleep will impose. It does not and eventually he gives up. He would rather be awake and useless in Joe’s arms, than productive outside of them.

He tries to be quiet, but Joe still blinks awake as he slides into their bed.

“It’s just me,” Nicky murmurs. 

“Mm,” Joe agrees, hands reaching. “I could recognize him by touch alone,” he quotes, “by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”

“Alright, habibi,” Nicky says fondly. “Go back to sleep.”

“Wasn’t asleep,” Joe murmurs in Arabic—additional evidence that he is, in fact, still partially asleep. “Cannot sleep without you in my arms.”

“Of course,” Nicky placates him, “but I am here, now.”

“Here,” Joe agrees, his mouth a warm smudge against the back of Nicky’s neck. “Yes.”

  


  


  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Captain's Log:
> 
> A wild plot appears!
> 
> My students are killing it, I get the second dose of the vaccine on Friday, and Deacon has learned that when we go hiking/snowshoeing in the mountains, he has to stay on the packed down trail or he will entirely disappear in a snowdrift. So. Life is pretty good.
> 
> I'm also apparently going to start posting a Mandalorian fic here shortly that will basically be an "accidental warlord Din Djarin" fic in which Din plays the reluctant MILF ruler and Luke plays the initially distrusted but quickly loved twink. Blame Ngozi's fanart. It was not my idea. Anyway, that first chapter should be up at the end of the week if anyone is interested. Thank you for all the comments! Love y'all!

**Author's Note:**

> Before anyone looks at the title and then the pairings and is like "but Nile and Booker are straight??": if two bisexual people are in a relationship it's still a queer relationship (and if I'm playing in this sandbox, everyone is queer).
> 
> Hello! If you don't know me already, I'm a newly-minted professor currently buried in both snow and work in Colorado with my service dog Deacon. I'll try to update weekly, but we'll see how that pans out depending on my workload. Expect stories about my students and dog in the A/Ns. For additional student/dog content I'm Xiaq on Tumblr too.
> 
> **Shout out to my betas: draskireis and LaBelleIzzy!**


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